When light enters an eye, it is refracted as it moves through the cornea, and again when it moves through the lens, before being reflected by the retina. The retina is composed of photoreceptors, which convert light to electrical impulses for passage through the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain where the sensation of vision occurs.
The retina contains cones, which are responsible for color vision, and rods, which are responsible for vision in the dark and black and white contrast. Photoreceptors are bundled together and communicate with a specific area of the visual cortex and later pass through optic radiation (a fiber system extending between the thalamus and the visual cortex) by way of a magnocellular pathway and a parvocellular pathway to the rear of the brain.
The magnocellular pathway and the parvocellular pathway (sometimes collectively referred to herein as “optic pathways”) are associated with rods and cones, respectively, and are involved in perception of 3-D positioning, spatial orientation, and the ability to read, write, recognize words, and decipher meanings of words.
Indeed, irregularities in the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways, as well as the back left portion of the brain, have being implicated in cases of learning differences, such as difficulty reading, writing, recognizing words, and deciphering the meanings of words. For example, pathologists have found damage to the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways in dyslexic individuals. Additionally, neuroimaging equipment has helped researchers identify the back left part of the brain as the portion that allows for reading.
It has been suggested that learning differences, such as dyslexia, are not generally the result of brain damage or abnormality, but the result of the eyes inability to send data through the optic pathways to the parts of the brain which are used during reading. There is not currently known to be an apparatus or method which could correct such errors. Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for an apparatus and method which satisfactorily addresses the above mentioned problems.